Chance
by DarkBlueMint
Summary: After the war Lexa finds herself back in Arkadia, where she tries to let go of her past and find a future.
1. Before

The day Callie Cartwig met Lexa was when she realized that her whole life, her choices, the path she took, was all for that moment; the moment that the little girl, with the curly hair and the green eyes, looked at her defiantly from the hospital bed. A drug runner from one of the gangs in the city, the ten year old had wanted to escape them and go to school, but had found out that the Azgeda didn't agree with her choice.

"Got off lucky," the officer had said to her, "could've been worse."

She had wanted to disagree, to tell him that broken ribs, a broken arm, and a contusion weren't getting lucky; but she knew Azgeda. She knew that little Lexa could've ended up as one of their sex workers or dead in a ditch with no one knowing who she was. Just another victim of gang violence.

When they met, Callie was a social worker, a young woman with a degree in child psychology who wanted to change the world. When they met, Lexa was a tiny thing in a bed who had dared to dream, and now was afraid. When they met it was simply Callie entering the room and meeting one of the loves of her life; the moment she saw the curly hair and the angry green she understood Storge, the love for family. Not that Callie hadn't cared for her parents (though they've been good, there was always a distance between them), but the moment she met Lexa it was all consuming. She always thought she would birth her children, never thought she would meet them in a hospital bed.

It took time, weeks, to get Lexa to trust her, months to dare and ask her to live with her, to request to be her mother; but the day she did those green eyes lighted up and a smile burned on her face. The little family spent the rest of the day crying... and cried harder when, months later, the judge congratulated them and called them mother and daughter.

* * *

Meeting Raven was the same and different.

They moved to Arkadia after the adoption was finalized; Lexa was still scared of every corner, waiting for the Azgeda to still come for her. Callie was sure that they already forgot about her, but her daughter's monsters were more real than usual. In the end she decided that a change was good for both of them, and when Marcus Kane, an old friend, offered her a job as a counselor for the clinic in the town he had made his home, Callie took it as a sign.

The move proved to be auspicious, the clean air and forests around Arkadia were healing for Lexa. She found some friends, joined the Trikru, a scout's troop, played sports, and was completely different from the small nine year old that had to run drugs to survive. At eleven Lexa had found her north in soccer, and, thanks to that, had earned a best friend in Luna, a mentor in Anya, and the nickname of Commander from her teammates.

Callie's heart couldn't be fuller, but still found more space in another hospital.

Raven Reyes, was proud girl with dark hair and brown eyes, and a severe frown that spoke of mistrust and defiance. She had ended there after another fight between her parents; her father, while drunk, had pulled a gun to shoot her mother. And one of the bullets hit the hiding girl's back, paralyzing her right leg, and condemning her to wear a brace and years of pain and physical therapy.

Callie was one of the few people that had medical knowledge and a fostering license, and she was weak against the pleading of Vera Kane.

"She has no one, Callie. The closest group home with an on-call nurse is in Polis, and I don't trust them to have the resources to care for her beyond the basics; just until we find better placement."

She had been afraid getting home. Lexa was nice and caring, but serious, and she didn't know how her Raven would take to her first daughter. she was too defiant, too unstable because the people that were supposed to love her only showed her pain. She knew her daughter well enough to know she would understand, about the girl being injured, about the need for shelter; but still she feared about introducing them.

A silly fear, a useless fear as it came to be.

The moment the two girls sized each other up, everything changed in Callie's life again. Lexa, small as she was, had helped Raven to the couch and to the movie she was watching while Anya babysat her, and simply said to her:

"I'm watching Nemo; it's my favorite, after you can choose one."

The feeling that filled Callie the first time she met Lexa overflowed her again. By the end of the day, with Lexa and Raven napping together while the tv was showing the Lion King, Callie called Vera and asked to find her a judge, she had just met her second child.


	2. Back

"Mom, you're fussing again" Lexa sighed when Callie's hand started to touch the medals again, then went back to fiddle with her daughter's uniform jacket.

The airport was filled with other soldiers back from war, heroes returning from one of the worst campaigns that involved their Nation; but sons and daughters, fathers and mothers were back. At least that was what Lexa's General had said in his speech before letting them loose to reunite with their families. She wasn't sure how many heroes had actually returned, she was sure, though, that most of the ones back home had scars that would take years to heal. Her mother fussing over her uniform helped with hers.

"It's just... you've been gone so long and you come home like this, all..." Callie choked up again, it was hard. Her memory kept juxtaposing the little girl in the hospital bed, not the charming but quiet high schooler that had joined the Marine Corps to make a difference in the world. Added on to everything, months before the real fear of her first child not coming home had overwhelmed the little family.

"Mom, she's fine. She comes back wearing a uniform, with muscles and a whole publicity campaign hailing her as a hero... Girls are going to drop her panties at her feet; she's military grade lesbian candy." Raven stole a fry from Lexa's tray. "I mean, c'mon, how many soldiers have already come and shook her hand? And like a lot of those girls wanted to undress her in the bathroom and taste the rainbow, if you know what I mean."

Callie made a pause in her reminiscing to look warningly at her eldest daughter, who smiled charmingly and tried to steal another fry from her sister's plate, only to have Lexa grabbing her hand and moving her fries to her other side. Lexa had wanted to rush to the car and leave Polis for Arkadia as fast as they could, but the moment that her mom asked about the last time she was fed, and Lexa answered 'last night', she knew she was condemned to the Polis Airport food court; which also meant a cavalcade of people calling her hero. The burger and fries were one of the best she had tasted at least.

Just as Callie was getting ready to berate her oldest for her crassness, a uniformed guy stalked to their table. Getting near Lexa he punched the table and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to get up.

"First Lieutenant Cartwig" said the beast of a man with all the hostility that could fill rank and name "I don't know if you know me, I'm Mark Quint," the next words dripped with sarcasm and hate, "it's an honor to be in front of the hero of the war, the changing point, the fucker that GOT MY LITTLE BROTHER KILLED!"

At his last words Quint threw a punch to Lexa's head, one that never connected. In a move that surprised her family, Lexa used her left arm to stop his hit, then with her right palm she struck directly to his solar plexus, causing Quint to practically stop breathing. Before he recovered, Lexa already went for his knee with a kick, and the moment he started falling, she followed through with a punch to his head. In just seconds Mark Quint was knocked out, Lexa just waiting over him until the MPs and Airport security came and took control of the situation. Witnesses and Lexa's status as a hero got her cleared of any wrongdoing, and they were allowed to leave.

She knew that the papers, local and international, hailed her as a hero... as the turning point in the war. Lexa knew what she had done. She knew that there was some truth, but the price she had to pay was too high. And she hated that people made more of her contribution than what it actually was... just a soldier following orders, being lucky enough to survive, and getting a lot of other soldiers only able to return in a box with a flag on top. She knew that Quint was right, she was the fucker that got sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters killed.

"Can we go?" was the only thing she said when her mother and sister started to worry about her.

To be honest she couldn't be here. She knew that in Arkadia newly instated Mayor, Marcus Kane, probably wanted to throw a parade in her honor, or probably the Arkadians would stare at her, but the airport was becoming constricting. She could feel a panic attack coming, something that hadn't happened since high school and Clarke Griffin.

The car ride was silent, for the most part, sometimes broken by Raven trying to lighten the mood and telling her everything about her work with Jacapo Sinclair; or how she was happy about working in the local high school teaching AP Physics and Shop.. especially now that the town council had sprung for a 3D printer. Still Lexa was as quiet as ever, not answering.

"Lex?" This time it was Callie who broke the silence, "I think you need to consider therapy, before... I know it wasn't easy, what happened... I... you want me to call Nyko?"

"I..." Lexa was ready to say no, and if she wasn't raised by a psychologist she may have, but she remembered how healing it had been talking to him while in high school. "Yeah."

The mood seems to change after this; Lexa shared some of her lighter stories about her deployment, and engages Raven asking about her students. Callie's happy to have her girl back. Lexa's happy to see her mother smiling.

It's night when they finally reached Arkadia. Callie informed her that they need to stop for groceries, and Lexa is surprisingly alright with this. Before she hated doing mundane tasks such as going grocery shopping, mostly as it meant having to meet half the town and being obligated to interact with people that one didn't like; but she had been in the Marines for eight years, she wanted to go back to the mundane.

The grocery hadn't changed much; fruit was now in the left side and frozen produce in the right, but same store, mostly the same people, though luckily mostly empty at this hour. Lexa decided to wander away when her mom started to scold Raven for putting candy in their cart.

She was largely distracted until something collided with her leg. Looking down she saw a little boy, dirty blond hair, soft brown eyes, which were looking at her as if she was the most surprising sight of his short life.

"You're a soldier," the little boy wasn't even trying to hide the surprise in his voice. Lexa smiled.

"Yes."

"With a lot of medals" and again Lexa couldn't hid her smile at his awe.

"Yes"

""You're a hero!"

"Erh... well-." Lexa didn't know how to answer that simple sentence, the kid probably wouldn't want to know that there were people like Quint, or that Lexa didn't consider herself as such.

The boy realizing something tugged her hand and smiled at her, "Hi, I'm Aden!" and saluted.

"I'm Lexa, good to meet you Aden."

"Aden! I told you more than once not to wander off to-." The voice trailed off, and Lexa wanted to know why the woman, that was probably Aden's mother, had stopped talking the moment she joined them in the aisle.

When she raised her eyes she found blue, familiar blue, blue that used to mean pain.

"Momma! Found a soldier."

Lexa was quiet, her eyes were looking at the woman, first with surprise then with hostility. There in front of her was the person that made all of high school a nightmare, Clarke Griffin. She knew that her life changed, she knew that she had seen and lived worse but in that moment, all the hate that Lexa carried in high school came back.

"Lexa, it's good to see you ba-."

Before Clarke could've finished Lexa had done an about face and simply left her. She could hear Aden asking why the soldier was leaving, a part of her wanted to go back, show Clarke that she hadn't broken her, that she had become something better... even if she didn't believe that herself.

She left the store, sat next to her family's car, and cried. For the war, for those she lost, for eighteen year old Lexa, for Quint, and for her broken, terribly broken heart. By the time her family found her she managed to calm herself. She gave a weak explanation that she needed air (that neither mother nor sister believed) and was quiet the whole way home. It was later, in bed alone and trying to sleep when something occurred to her: she hated Clarke Griffin, but couldn't explain the feeling that had seized her when she met her son.


End file.
